Bleed It Out
by Theoretical-Optimist
Summary: When Hermione returns for her eighth year at Hogwarts, she enrolls in Alchemy. The focus of the Alchemy curriculum was custom designed by Professor Flamel and Headmistress McGonagall to prove whether there is any difference between blood statuses. Written for Round 10 of The Houses Competition (year two)


House: Gryffindor

Position: HoH

Category: Themed (Red)

Prompt: [Pairing type] Former Enemies.

Word Count: 2459

Betas: Tigger and Shibalyfe

* * *

Although Ron and Harry had jumped at the chance to join the Auror Training Program in the months following the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione knew she needed to go back to school, earn her N.E.W.T.s, and rediscover herself.

She wished Harry and Ron had joined her, but understood why they couldn't. For Harry, being at Hogwarts would be just too painful. And Ron was thrilled at not having to take exams before starting his career.

Hermione didn't expect to see many of her former classmates in the special meeting Professor McGonagall hosted for the eighth year students, but she was pleasantly surprised to see Dean across the room.

"How have you been, Hermione?" he asked while giving her a friendly hug.

"I'm glad to be back. This summer was difficult with all the—"

"—Funerals," he completed her thought. "I know. I couldn't bear to go to most of them. How are Harry and Ron holding up?"

"Harry's doing alright. He finally started sleeping through the night about a month ago. Ginny and I got him set up with a Squib therapist who is helping him process everything."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, my mum had me go talk with someone too. It was a bit tricky because he was a Muggle, but I think it really helped."

Hermione gave his hand a squeeze. "That's great, Dean." She glanced around the room, searching amongst the small group. "Are we the only Gryffindors from our year?"

"Yeah. You know about Harry and Ron. And Neville too, I'm assuming?" When Hermione confirmed that she knew Neville was joining the Auror program too, he continued. "Seamus was here for last year and was able to study and take his N.E.W.T.s over the summer. And Parvati couldn't bear to come back without Lavender."

The pair fell silent for a moment. Hermione had tried to save Lavender from Greyback, but she'd succumbed to her injuries. It didn't surprise Hermione that Parvati was unwilling to face Hogwarts without her best friend by her side.

"Well, I'm glad you're here with me, Dean."

"Me too," he replied.

Professor McGonagall walked into the room and called the meeting to attention.

"Welcome back eighth years. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the unusual circumstances of this year and the horrors that lead to it. Lord Voldemort is dead and so are many of his followers. But the extreme prejudice and hatred that led to the war still exists in our world."

Hermione glanced around the room at her fellow students. She spotted several yellow Hufflepuff robes, a few blue Ravenclaw robes, and one lone green Slytherin robe. Her eyes locked on the wearer's own eyes. Shrewd, grey eyes pierced through her, but she refused to so much as flinch.

Draco Malfoy had returned to Hogwarts.

McGonagall continued her speech. "I'd like you all to take out your wands and cast a small slicing hex along your palm."

Hermione did as she was told. A trail of bright crimson blood bubbled up from the wound.

"Please look at your hand and your classmates' hands."

Hermione glanced around the room and once again focused on Draco, the boy who had been her enemy and tormentor for years. His eyes followed a drip of her blood as it trailed down her forearm and curled around the letters carved into her skin.

"Blood prejudice is complete nonsense," McGonagall asserted. "Pure-blood, half-blood, Mudblood. We all bleed the same. I want all of you eighth years to keep that in mind and serve as positive examples for the rest of the student body. Now, everyone to their dormitories."

In silence, Hermione and her classmates filed out of the room. She and Dean turned to head up the corridor towards Gryffindor tower.

"Granger! Hey Granger, wait a minute," commanded a voice.

Hermione turned around and felt Dean brace himself beside her.

"Leave her alone, Malfoy," Dean spat. "Don't you think you've done enough damage already?"

"Look, Thomas," he sneered, "this is between me and Granger."

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Dean go for his wand. She immediately diffused the situation by stepping forward. "What do you want?"

"Thank you."

Both Hermione and Dean jolted at the simple phrase.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"You heard me." Draco scowled. "Look, I know that it was your and Potter's testimony that kept me out of Azkaban. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you."

"You're welcome," she said.

"I just want to get through this year and get on with my life," Draco said. "I won't cause any problems for you if you do the same for me."

"Agreed."

Dean put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Hermione, I think you should—"

She cut him off with a sharp look. "Agreed. Truce?" She stuck her hand out for him to shake.

Malfoy gripped her hand and withdrew quickly. Hermione felt a cold, wet spot on her palm. Looking down, she discovered that some of Malfoy's blood and transferred onto her hand and hers onto his.

She waved her wand over the blood, cleaned the area and closed the wound.

Before she could offer to heal Malfoy, he was already walking the opposite way, staring at the twin spots of red blood.

"Well, that was strange," Dean said. "But I reckon it's a good thing if Malfoy plans to lay low this year and not cause any problems for you."

Hermione nodded and whispered, "Yeah, it's a good thing."

* * *

Hermione ran down the hallway. The last thing she wanted to do was be late to the first Alchemy class of the year. Especially since Professor McGonagall had made an exception for prerequisite requirements to allow her to take Alchemy to begin with. Ordinarily, N.E.W.T. level Alchemy was only available to students who took the class in their sixth year, but it had conflicted with Arithmancy.

Skidding to a stop in front of the classroom, Hermione took a second to brush her hands along her robes so that she wouldn't look like a disheveled mess.

As she entered the room, she immediately scanned for an optimal seat. Generally, Hermione chose seats that gave her an unobstructed view of the board and the professor's podium. In years past, she'd sat near Harry or Ron, but that was no longer an option. This year, she'd taken to sitting next to Dean, Ginny, or Luna, but none of them were signed up for Alchemy.

Hermione's scan took only a microsecond. She spotted only one other student waiting for class to begin.

Draco Malfoy was seated on the far left side of back row of desks. He had carefully spread his textbook, parchment, and quills across his desk. He briefly glanced up, gave her a curt nod, and returned his attention to straightening his quills.

Hermione hurried to the right most seat in the front row of the classroom and quickly withdrew her supplies.

No sooner had she opened her textbook, then a tall man with light brown hair swept into the room.

The man glanced at Hermione, then Draco, then back to Hermione. "This won't do at all," he proclaimed. "I won't teach a class with my only students sitting so far apart. Move closer together, please."

Obediently, Hermione began to pack up her books. "Only students?"

"Alchemy isn't the most popular of subjects. It's a shame really. But most students don't think it's flashy enough."

When Draco and Hermione had settled into adjacent desks, the professor said, "Wonderful. I believe introductions are in order. I'm Jacoby Flamel."

"As in Nicolas Flamel?" Hermione asked excitedly.

Draco let out a cough that sounded strangely like "know-it-all".

"He was my many-times Great Uncle. He took me under his wing and got me interested in the noble art of alchemy. Alchemy is, at its core, the study of the four natural elements: earth, air, fire, and water."

Hermione ran her quill across the parchment, determined not to miss a single important fact.

"Alchemy also delves into the transmutation of substances like base metals to gold. But we won't be dealing with that this year."

"What will we be studying?" asked Hermione.

"Blood."

Draco drawled, "Blood? What about blood?"

"When only the two of you signed up, Professor McGonagall asked me to structure the curriculum of this course a little bit different than normal. Over the course of this year, you're going to distill different blood types to determine their magical properties. It is your task to uncover whether there is any difference between those born of magical parents, those with Muggle lineage, and those who are a bit of a mix."

"Well, I'm of course pure-blood. And Granger's a Mu—" he caught himself, "—Muggleborn."

"And I'm half and half. It's your task to find other volunteers to donate a small sample of blood to test. Ideally, we'll be able to determine which of the four natural elements a person's magic is rooted in."

"And see which elements correlate to which blood status," Draco said.

"That's what we're going to find out," said Professor Flamel.

* * *

"You want me to do what?" asked Ginny that night at dinner.

"It's just a small pinprick, Gin," Hermione promised. "We need a lot of samples so that this study is as accurate as possible. Malfoy and I agreed to ask everyone in our houses to help out."

"Asking all of Slytherin for varied blood samples? All you'll get is a lot of inbred purebloods."

"Blood is blood, Gin. I'm with you on the inbred idea, but this study is going to once and for all prove that no witch or wizards' blood is dirtier than anyone else's. It's my hypothesis that lineage will have no bearing on which element a person's magic is rooted in."

"Good luck getting Malfoy to agree to that theory," Ginny said.

"He doesn't have to join in my hypothesis. In fact, Professor Flamel expressly forbid Draco and I from discussing our hypotheses until the results are in."

"You just called him Draco."

"I suppose I did. I'm going to be working with him all year on this. He asked for a truce. I don't want to have him as my enemy anymore. And if my hypothesis is right, it's going to prove that there was no reason for us to have been enemies to begin with."

* * *

"Watch it, Granger," Draco ordered. "It's supposed to be three counter-clockwise stirs followed by two figure eights. You reversed the directions."

"I did not!" she insisted.

Draco and Hermione had agreed to meet in the Alchemy classroom during their free period to make a batch of indicator solution. Their research had shown that a single drop of blood added to the solution would turn the sample a distinctive color: red for fire based magic, blue for air, yellow for earth, and green for water.

"I know how to make a potion Draco," Hermione snarled.

"Clearly, you don't, because you're messing it up." He shoved her out of the way and her hand scraped across a knife that he'd just used to dice lacewing flies.

"Ow!" she cried.

Draco abandoned the stirring rod and clasped her injured hand. "Let me see," he ordered.

"It's nothing," she said as she tried to yank her hand away.

A smear of her red blood dropped onto his skin. Carefully, he flipped her hand over and waved his wand, closing the wound. He continued to hold her hand in his even after the bleeding stopped.

"Granger, I—" he started. "Hermione—"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by the sound of the solution bubbling over the side of the cauldron.

She pulled her hand out of his and rushed to clean it up. "This batch is ruined." She vanished the debris and started pouring in fresh ingredients.

Silently, Hermione and Draco worked side by side for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

"Today's the day," declared Professor Flamel. "You've both agreed to make this a blind study. I've randomized the blood samples and assigned each a number. You will perform your tests and record your results using those numbers. Once the testing is complete, I will provide you with the names that match up with the numbers. Begin."

One by one, Hermione and Draco took turns adding single drops of blood to individual glass vials containing the indicator solution. Some samples turned a solitary color ranging from soft pastels to vibrant, deep shades. Some samples caused the solution to form layers with one color floating above another. And some samples caused the indicator solution to spiral out into a full rainbow of hues.

Once the final blood drop was added, Draco and Hermione sorted through their results.

"Before I give you the names, I'd like for you to share your original hypotheses with each other," Professor Flamel requested.

Hermione went first. "I theorized that there wouldn't be any differences between between people with different magical origins. But given that there are three primary types of blood statuses and we saw three different types of color reactions, I think I might have been wrong."

She looked down at her notes, unable to meet either Draco or Professor Flamel's eyes.

Draco looped a finger under her chin and dragged her gaze up to his. "You can't be more wrong than I was, Hermione. And not just about this class."

"Share your hypothesis," Professor Flamel ordered.

"I thought that purebloods would have the strongest elemental roots for their magic. The less concentrated the magical blood, the lighter the color in the solution would be."

Hermione glanced at the rows of vials, quickly scanning over the dark, rich colors and the barely there pastels.

"But I was wrong," Draco said.

"How could you possibly know that?" Hermione asked. "We don't know who belongs to which sample yet."

"Because if there's anything I've learned over this year, it's that you are not pastel. You're bright and vibrant and bleed the same red blood as me. There's no difference there."

Professor Flamel handed Draco a notebook with the linked names and sample numbers. "I'll leave you two to it."

Hermione peered over Draco's shoulder as he opened the book. Scanning quickly, he found his and Hermione's name and called out the numbers.

She quickly plucked out their vials. And they sat in stunned silence.

Draco's blood solution was sharply contrasting layers of emerald and ruby.

Hermione's was a perfect inversion.

"Fitting isn't it," Draco said.

"What do you mean?"

"That enemies would be the exact opposite of each other."

"We're not enemies," Hermione said. "Well I hope we aren't enemies."

"Former enemies then," Draco suggested. "And maybe now friends?"

"I'd like that," Hermione said. "Friends."


End file.
